Indian investors eying Ethiopia should ensure that the local
population is consulted before they are displaced for projects that
involve the transfer of vast tracts of land, activists on Tuesday said,
citing what they alleged were multiple instances of land grab in the
east African
The Ethiopian government had committed “egregious violations of human
rights” in leasing over 600,000 hectares of land to Indian companies,
Anuradha Mittal of the US-based Oakland Institute said in New Delhi on
Tuesday – charges that country’s government has consistently denied.
Speaking to reporters in New Delhi, Obang Metho, the exiled head of
the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) said the India must
choose whether to support globally established human rights, as the
world’s largest democracy. “I call this daylight robbery,” Metho said.
Several thousand members of the Anywaa tribe have been displaced, and
are being denied access to their farm lands, Nyikaw Ochalla, the
director of the Anywaa Suirvival Organization – a group supporting the
community – said.
The Ethiopian government under the late former Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi started attracting large scale investment from foreign countries,
including India, China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Zenawi and current
Ethiopian officials have insisted that the investment will help develop
Ethiopia, ranked near the bottom of the United Nations Human Development
Index.
They have also asserted that displacement of locals in land deals with Indian companies has been minimal
No comments:
Post a Comment